Pain in the Aft
by RenaRoo
Summary: Chromia finds herself taken the proverbial and literal bullet for Windblade within ten minutes of their reunion, but she can't help but feel like it's exactly the way things are supposed to be. ChromiaxWindblade. Sapphic September: Ache


I missed posting this on the right day the first time around so let's doooo this.

Transformers and related characters © Hasbro  
story © RenaRoo

 **Pain in the Aft**

The terms of Chromia's release for her crimes against Cybertron had been all but nonnegotiable. She was to hunt down the threat that had nearly destroyed the planet as well as the feeble peace between the Council of Worlds and, _more_ importantly by Chromia's estimates, been directly responsible for the loss of the only mech Chromia had felt her fealty toward.

Traveling by space cruiser, particularly one as small and ramshackle as what Starscream had sent her off in, was not luxurious and it was not good for peace of mind. But it _was_ unassuming, even in the face of increased tensions between organics and nonorganic life. Which gave her cover in ways she hadn't been looking for before.

She charged occasionally but Chromia mostly spent her time at the helm, even if autopilot was perfectly acceptable between the long trips from planet to planet.

Even though she, like any normal nonorganic, was offline while charging on a berth, it were the moments just after she came back online that she tried with everything in her to avoid. Those moments where it would take just a second too long for the world to reboot around her, and for Chromia to remember where she was and what she doing. What she was doing it for.

More than anything, she hated those moments, because it was in the flickering of those moments that she most easily forgot that Windblade was gone. That the cityspeaker under her protection had died on her watch. And that it was her fault.

Everything… Everything had been her fault.

The guilt never left Chromia, but those foul moments of being hit with the reminder of what pained her, what caused the aches which transcended through her, that Chromia hated the most.

For every second that she wasn't miserable, that she allowed herself to be off objective, Chromia felt the ache grow larger in her spark. It felt as though she was letting Windblade and her sacrifice slowly numb her from its sharp pain. And she hated it.

* * *

Following up on her latest lead, Chromia found herself within the territory of the Black Block Consortia. Dangerous for any inorganic, to be sure, but for a Cybertronian it was a death sentence. Which made it not much different than the exile and banishment which Chromia was already suffering through.

She faced the new world with her shield raised and a set look on her face. Like most of the times she landed, she received many looks, but the further she got into the darker sides of marketplaces and the back allies littered with debris and scum, the less she stood out as a mechanical life. Especially with the newly added scrapes and dents that had been gained since she first started her hunt.

Asking around took a few hours, middling information would have cost an arm and a leg if not for the high expense associated with trade goods, something Chromia had learned quite well over the cycles.

Even then, though, news of Liege Maximo was difficult to decipher, especially in the rare instance where the ones spilling the information were actually aware enough of _who_ they were informing Chromia of.

The fact that her quest was sending her further and further into Consortia territory was troubling enough to Chromia that she had made a log of it to be sent out with her usual transmissions. It was unlikely that any sort of alliance that could be gained between their enemies would leave Cybertron and the Council in a better place.

It also meant she was keeping an eye out for spies from the other side.

Chromia tried to keep herself alert for anything that could happen, but she knew from experience that it was a nearly impossible task.

And even then, heading back to her ship mostly empty handed, she could not have been prepared to see another Cybertronian vessel beside her own.

She stopped, uncertain and suspicious at first, then began to look for the obvious suspects. Enemies from her past, perhaps rogue Cybertronians in league with Liege Maximo, ravagers who were going to pick apart her ship for any goods as soon as they cracked the security codes on it.

She hated all the options, so she readied her shield and spear, quietly pushing forward to sidestep around her ship and catch whoever was on the other side when—

The _one thing_ she couldn't have expected met her.

Windblade's perfect frame was leaned over, examining the ship's lock and trying to determine how long it had been there judging by the clock projected for her. She held a thin finger to her lips and frowned at the information. Her wings raised and fell with a dissatisfied vent and she straightened up to full figure, hands on her hips and a soft glow from her optics.

Everything was perfect. Everything about her that had always been so meticulous, so _perfect_ , was still in place. She looked the same as she had the day before everything on Cybertron had gone straight to the Pits.

Diplomat, spiritual leader, cityspeaker, and more — all the things that Windblade had been from the moment Chromia had been assigned to her protection to the moment that she was no more _exuded_ from her even at the distance that Chromia was at then and there.

Chromia's brain module all but recycled. She couldn't _possibly_ believe what her own optics were seeing.

Everyone knew that Windblade died protecting Cybertron. Everyone mourned her loss. The ceremonies were still ongoing even when Chromia still sat in her cell, listening to the offer for her tentative freedom from the Mistress of Flame and Starscream.

The Windblade that Chromia swore to lay her life down for _and then missed her chance_ was long gone, spark extinguished, body a shell.

And yet she stood at Chromia's ship, looking up and around curiously, looking like she had a fresh touchup of paint.

"Windblade," Chromia finally breathed, dropping her shield and spear in shock.

Hearing her name, Windblade turned to where Chromia had hidden herself almost immediately and then stepped forward. Her bright blue eyes seemingly lit up as she continued walking toward her former bodyguard. "Chromia! It's you! I had hoped that you still had the ship that Starscream told me you had, but I wasn't certain—"

"By _Primus,"_ Chromia vented, shook to the spark. "You're… _Windblade!"_

She hesitated, looking unsure, and tilted her head. "Chromia? Are you… You look… _awful,_ are you alright?"

"I'm…" Chromia was many things, but articulate at the moment was _not_ one of them. She gaped at the sight of Windblade, at the sense of her, at the static of her EMF field. At _all_ of it that was so impossibly truly Windblade.

And it made her _ache_ at every corner, every wire and fiber of her being. In ways that she hadn't ached since the first time after Windblade's reported death that she had managed to charge herself on a berth.

"See! I told you! Mechs!"

It was the worst sound in the world, the sound of a snivelly bottom feeding organic and, just as Chromia had suspected in the moments leading up to it, they had managed to find and bring an entire small army of the misshapen messes that were the Black Block Consortia's civil officers. With plasma guns that were already set to charge.

"Cybertronians! You are in Consortia territory! Your sentence for trespassing is certain death!" was snarled out just before one took aim and began to fire.

Chromia was ready to take a hit but the moment she saw the arc of the gun she realized that it wasn't _her_ that was being fired at. After all, her beaten up, bruised frame and peeling paint masked her far easier among other inorganic life than Windblade's pristine paint and wide, pure eyes and highly visible transformation kibble.

There was almost no disguising jet wings.

"WINDBLADE!" Chromia cried out, diving in front of the oncoming blast without shield or spear in hand. She cursed herself for dropping them in her earlier shock.

The blast connected with Chromia's lower half and she was blown from the course of her fall into Windblade who, of all things, _caught Chromia_ and landed with her softly on the ground.

"Chromia, why!? I can fly!" Windblade reminded her, as if it were news.

"It's my job to protect you," Chromia gritted out in pain.

"You're foolish," Windblade replied before getting back to her feet and looking determinedly at the attacking organics. She altered the position of her wings, turning her turbines toward them and then, to Chromia's surprise, unleashed a bellowing blast of wind from the rotation of her turbines, sucking in the air and debris from behind her and launching it at the force of a small cyclone out at the attackers. It was enough force that the organics pulled back for cover.

Which gave them the time they needed.

"Alright," Windblade said, bending down and pulling Chromia into her much dandier arms. "We'll take _my_ ship then."

"You're alive," Chromia stated, mystified and spark bursting with untold emotion.

"And you got shot in the aft," Windblade countered, looking down even as she boarded the ship. "Chromia… you don't have to protect me, you're not my bodyguard. A bot who comes back from the dead _usually_ can get pretty good at protecting herself."

"Who's the fool now?" Chromia asked, flinching as she was sat down in the seat beside Windblade's pilot's chair. The burns to her aft from the laser fire were fairly painful, but there was far too much more important things happening in the moment. "I didn't jump in front of a gun to protect my cityspeaker. I jumped in front of it to protect _you._ Just you Windblade… because losing you already destroyed everything that made what I was fighting for out here feel utterly worthless."

"Hold on until we're in orbit," Windblade said. "I can jump us an we'll be out of danger. _Then_ we'll discuss feelings."

"Frag _discussion!"_ Chromia announced, leaning over the armrest of her chair even as they blasted through the atmosphere of the planet. "I don't need to discuss feelings, _feelings_ are the only things that have been on my brain more than your death since the moment I started this journey!"

Windblade pulled a displeased face as she jumped the ship. "Well, that's depressing."

"It's the furthest thing from it," Chromia said, not caring about her injury as she got up and closed the gap between them. She took hold of Windblade's hands in her own, dancing fingers across her palms before lacing their fingers together and holding tight. Windblade was stunned, looking at Chromia in disbelief. "You're alive. I stopped having my _wildest dreams_ of this day happening again because it was too painful to think of how I'd never actually see you again despite them. And here you are, back and alive and looking for me. _Me?_ As if I deserve it. As if anything could make me _less_ deserving of you. Windblade, I love you. I loved you before I knew I could love in that way. And from the moment we left Caminus my absolute greatest fear was in losing you. It happened and I died with you. But you're here. You're here and I love—"

"Oh, you pain in my aft," Windblade choked out, dropping to the floor on her knees as well and pulling Chromia into tight, gripping hug by the neck. "I've always loved you, too. And not only that, but you deserve every bit of my spark and more — you are a flawed creature jus like me, Chromia. Your wrath and my pride have cost us all the things we believed we desired. And now I just am so glad to have finally found you that the only thing I want to do now is make sure we never forget to say what we _really_ mean to each other again."

Chromia tightened her hug in return, squeezing her eyes shut happily. "I can do that," she muttered against Windblade. "I can do that."


End file.
